Tag: oxford

Extraordinarily crude sludge headaches from Oxford’s newest, Drore. Their first demo (which sold out way too fast…) is a filthy disharmonic sandpit of deliberate mishits and bellicose riffing that opens with the literal sound of pissing before proceeding into a savage musical portrayal of passing agonising kidney stones. The four songs are crammed with loose strung buzzsaw riffs, each one a composite of multiple quarreling notes that ooze unease, and the raw vocals are overflowing with despondency. There’s a musty metallic taste that brings to mind Lich, an angular darkness that relates well to Ghold’s PYR, and during the most terrifying passages, Drore sound like Deathspell Omega’s punk side project. It’s obscene, obscure and incompatibly brutal, and one of the most crucial demos to get to grips with this year.

Blown out lofi puke punk from Oxford with a righteous boom-cha approach and played way too loud on purpose. It’s verse, chorus, verse with no mucking about by characters from Undersmile (outcast funeral sludge) and Girl Power (sick duo fuzz d-beat, anticipating the new release Welcome To the Gun Show being available soon), with a feral catchiness, alluring monotony and duel screamed vocals oppressing you often in an anarcho fashion. The kick gets so submerged that all that can be heard is smacked snare and a swarm of abused cymbals at points, but the clog of noise and mutant guitar style is easy to get along with – ‘Clean Shirts’ feels blurry, bruised and like everyone is playing out of sync, and final track ‘Clameron’ tricks you in to thinking it’s about to drop in to Jerry’s Kids ‘Is This My World?’. The whole demo is over in less than ten minutes, by which time Basic Dicks will be wedged firmly down your ear for good.